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Explaining the Relationship between Employment and Juvenile Delinquency
Jeremy Staff1, D Wayne Osgood, John E Schulenberg
1The Pennsylvania State University.
Criminology : an Interdisciplinary Journal
|March 29, 2011
Summary
Teenage employment shows a positive link to delinquency and substance use. This study suggests pre-existing factors, not work itself, drive this association, especially for youth desiring intensive employment.
Area of Science:
- Criminology
- Developmental Psychology
- Sociology
Background:
- Criminological theories typically predict an inverse relationship between employment and crime.
- However, empirical evidence indicates a positive correlation between teenage paid work during the school year and delinquency and substance use.
- The causal nature of this work-delinquency association remains a subject of debate.
Purpose of the Study:
- To estimate the causal effect of paid work on juvenile delinquency.
- To disentangle actual employment effects from preferences for employment.
- To investigate the role of time-varying selection factors in the employment-delinquency relationship.
Main Methods:
- Utilized longitudinal data from the national Monitoring the Future project.
- Employed a two-level hierarchical model to analyze within-individual changes.
- Differentiated between actual employment and employment preferences.
Main Results:
- Found significantly higher rates of crime and substance use among non-employed youth who preferred intensive work compared to those preferring moderate work.
- The relationship between high-intensity work desire and delinquency appears driven by pre-existing factors.
- No significant causal effect of actual employment hours on delinquency was found.
Conclusions:
- The observed association between intensive work and delinquency is likely spurious, stemming from underlying individual characteristics.
- Youth's pre-existing desires for employment, rather than employment itself, are linked to delinquency and substance use.
- Future research should focus on selection factors influencing both work preferences and behavioral outcomes in adolescents.
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